North Carolina man asks Fourth Circuit to nix child porn flagged by Google algorithm

[Jim Burton]

https://www.courthousenews.com/north-ca ... algorithm/

No less an authority than U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has weighed in on the issue. While serving on the 10th Circuit, the Donald Trump appointee wrote the opinion in U.S. v. Ackerman that found the NCMEC conducted an illegal search by reviewing emails flagged by the internet service provider American Online.

The Fifth Circuit reached a different conclusion in U.S. v. Reddick, ruling that law enforcement did not exceed the scope of a private search by Microsoft SkyDrive when it reviewed suspect files without a warrant.

U.S. Circuit Judge Robert B. King, a Bill Clinton appointee, grilled defense attorney Raymond C. Tarlton at Friday’s hearing on the reported accuracy of Google’s screening tool in detecting child pornography — odds of an error are estimated at 1-in-9.1 quintillion.

“That’s lead-pipe cinch,” King said. “It’s a lot of probable cause.”

U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanie D. Thacker, a Barack Obama appointee, pointed out the government never established the accuracy of the algorithm because there was no evidentiary hearing in the case.